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South Buckinghamshire District Council (Benefit Fraud Inspectorate)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Chris Pond): On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the BFI inspection report on South Buckinghamshire district council was published today and copies have been placed in the Library.
In 2003–04, South Buckinghamshire district council administered some £9 million in housing benefits, about 38 per cent. of its gross revenue expenditure. BFI found that the council's counter-fraud work and audit arrangements were not at standard.
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The council had contracted out counter-fraud work in 1997 but little meaningful counter-fraud work was done under these arrangements. Following a best value review of the revenues and benefits service, direct responsibility for managing counter-fraud was returned to the council on 1 September 2004.
BFI found that existing strategic and policy plans contained too little detail to be fully effective and that some were still in draft. In many cases no fraud file was set up to hold details of the investigation and where a fraud file did exist it contained insufficient information. The management of the council's counter-fraud resources and quality of the investigative work was poor. No fraud sanctions had been applied in over 10 years. The performance development team is now working with the council to develop a long-term strategy to improve counter-fraud work.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is now considering the report and may ask the council for its proposals in response to the BFI's findings.
Flintshire County Council (Benefit Fraud Inspectorate)
Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Chris Pond): On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the BFI inspection report on Flintshire county council was published today and copies have been placed in the Library.
In 2003–04, Flintshire county council administered some £26.5 million in housing benefits, about 10 per cent. of its gross revenue expenditure. In the final quarter of 2003–04 the council was taking 89 days on average to process new claims to housing benefits against the Standard of 36 days. This performance placed it in the bottom quartile of performance.
BFI found that the council had bought a new benefits IT system in November 2003 but had some difficulty implementing it and this led to backlogs of work. The council had cleared these by June 2004 but in doing so training and the development of effective management information were neglected. By October 2004 Flintshire county council was processing new claims in 70 days, a useful improvement but still almost twice the standard time. Significant problems remain with the IT system and these must be addressed urgently. While the benefits service is integral to the council's corporate aims, objectives and targets for it were not prioritised, job descriptions did not reflect staff duties and lines of responsibility for benefits staff were not clear.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is now considering the report and may ask the council for its proposals in response to the BFPs findings.